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The cheerful 75-year old Assam Chief Minister is back again for a third term after the 2011 state assembly elections. A lawyer by profession, who won five Lok Sabha elections, Tarun Gogoi, was confident of his win when he met the press at the Press Club of India a few months back.
In an election spanning five states that was marked by a strong accent on change, Tarun Gogoi is the only chief minister who returned the outgoing government back into power with a clear majority. Congress won a third time winning 78 of 126 seats in the Assam Assembly. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were decimated and relegated to third and fourth positions sharing just 15 seats between them. The little-known All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) has emerged as the main opposition picking up 18 seats.
Gogoi’s confidence stems from the fact that he is the chief architect of the new Assam which is on its way to marked development. His greatest contribution to Assam was determined effort to erase the ‘disturbed state’ tag on Assam.
Tarun Gogoi tirelessly worked to improve the security situation in Assam simultaneously adopting a conciliatory approach towards erstwhile insurgents encouraging them to join the mainstream.
When Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina spelt it out in clear terms that insurgent groups from Assam will not find support on Bangladesh soil, the Assam chief minister had two options to deal with the insurgents: (i) to break their back and bring them to their knees; or, (ii) to adopt a conciliatory and constructive approach towards them paving the way for a long term solution to the problem.
Tarun Gogoi had the vision and foresight to go for the second option restoring peace to this strife-torn state. This has opened the floodgates for development in the state as development is difficult in a disturbed state.
The other thing is, Tarun Gogoi is a no-nonsense chief minister who would order a CBI probe against his own government if incidents of corruption are brought to his notice. That has gone a long way in providing a clean and smooth administration as there is fear of punishment for the corrupt and non-performing politicians and officials in the state.
This election has placed Assam in good hands once again and, hopefully, the state will see tremendous development in the years to come.
